It is the weekend when Americans wrap themselves in the flag, but on this Fourth of July the stars and stripes in the gardens and on the porches of Marshall Circle remain at half-mast. The war was brought home to this tree-lined street at 10pm last Thursday in the hands of Major Jon Woodcock, a United States Marine instructor stationed on Rhode Island.

Driving a government van and wearing green trousers, khaki shirt and tie, garrison cap and black patent leather shoes buffed until you could see your face in them, Maj Woodcock rang the doorbell of No 74, a pale green wood-clad house with a pretty little garden, and changed the lives of Holly Charette's parents for ever.

Earlier that day their daughter, Lance Corporal Charette, 21, had been sitting in the back of a 7-tonne truck with other marines on their way back from a checkpoint outside Fallujah. They had been searching Iraqi women on a road into the city and it was the end of another long, hot day in Iraq. Dusk was falling and none of the Humvees assigned to protect the poorly armoured truck noticed the car as it approached. Seconds later the suicide bomber rammed his explosive-packed car into the side of the truck. Holly and three other female marines were killed and seven injured in the most deadly attack on women soldiers since the beginning of the Iraq war.

Maj Woodcock's face creased as he recalled breaking the news. "They took it pretty hard. It's the worst possible news you can give to any parent."

Most of Coventry, a sprawling, semi-rural town in the middle of Rhode Island, turned out for the wake on Friday at the Robert Lanotti funeral home. A long, silent queue of mourners began forming outside the building before the 3pm start, some wearing yellow ribbons, usually a sign of hope for a safe return home, pinned to badges showing the young marine's dimpled, smiling face.

Inside, a video screen flashed up pictures of Holly, while Elvis played over the loudspeakers. But the war hung heavily over the day, from the marines in dress uniform standing sentry at the front door to the flag-draped coffin inside. In the line of family greeting mourners was another marine, Holly's fiance, Alex Rodriguez. They had met at training camp and planned to settle down when she returned from the Middle East.

The marine corps flew him home from Iraq so that he could attend the ceremony. "They were so similar. They both joined up because of 9/11. And now she's given her life to save his," his sister, Jennifer, said, dissolving into tears.

Nobody wanted to talk about whether Holly should have been in Iraq in the first place. The suggestion that she may have died for a cause people no longer believe in was met with angry stares. They wanted to talk about the "little ray of sunshine", as her aunt Darleen Fortier called her.

But away from the ceremony the people of this predominantly blue-collar east-coast town were more willing to offer an opinion on the war. The death of a soldier in Iraq no longer makes the national headlines - there are too many dying for that - but in small towns like Coventry the impact should not be underestimated. As the war drags on and the death toll rises, opinion polls show support for the war haemorrhaging. President George Bush tried to rally support for the cause last week in a prime-time speech in which he urged the American people to "complete the mission".

"It made me so sick I could not even bear to watch him," one neighbour of Holly's family, who did not want to be named, said. "When something like this happens on your own doorstep ... I don't know. It just feels like too many people are dying."

The flag was also flying half-mast for Holly behind the town's Little League baseball field, where the under-15s were playing against local rivals, a typical all-American scene, fitting for the Fourth of July weekend.

"I was for the war when it started, but now it's gone on too long," said Kevin O'Loughlin, a chef at a local casino. "They [the Iraqis] don't want us out there any more, so we should get out ... I guess it does bring it home when something like this happens in your own town."

Mike Grossor, a construction worker sitting in a different section of the bleachers, agreed. "We should get out now. We have done what we wanted to do - brought down Saddam and given them democracy, but now it's time to leave them to their own devices."

In Iraq, Holly became known as the marine who brought good news. Her job was to deliver the mail around Camp Fallujah, a dusty city of more than 2,000 marines in the troubled Anbar province. According to a story published on the marine corps website in May, she made her rounds dressed in full battle uniform, flak jacket, helmet and M-16 rifle, a large yellow mail bag slung over one shoulder. "I never thought too hard about being a mail person," she told the website. "But it's a really important job and people depend on me."

The job must have suited her, because she said she wanted to join the US postal service when she finished her tour of duty in Iraq next March. "It won't be the same as being a marine, but at least I'm still in uniform," she said.

Her friends described Holly as a "girlie girl" with blonde hair, shiny dark brown eyes and a big smile, who played field hockey and was a cheerleader for her high school ice-hockey team. She never took life too seriously and was always ready with a silly face or a joke.

But then came September 11 and, like so many young Americans, something in Holly changed. "She watched the twin towers collapse on the television and she wanted to go and do something," Ms Fortier said.

She joined the marines and after three years' training was deployed to the dangerous Anbar province in western Iraq. Did Holly want to go to Iraq? "She was a good marine, she followed orders," said Ms Herrera, her fiance's sister. "People talk a lot about how women should not be on the front line, but there is no front line over there, the war is everywhere."